With a roster of enemies that grows with every new part of the isometric world you explore, you’re constantly learning to take down a new enemy or group of foes.Ī nice touch is that your gun only has a limited number of shots, and the only way to reload it is to slash enemies with your sword or use certain elements in the environment a clever distinction that completely removes the ability to pull back to a safe distance and grief enemies. Your dash can help you flit across gaps and provide a means of dodging enemy attacks, but most of the foes you’ll meet are fast too, so you’ll need to learn to master the speed and distance of this life-saving move. You can dash with ‘B’ and slash your sword with ‘Y’, and soon after you start you’ll unlock a pistol you can fire off with ‘RZ’. It’s painful, but it’s part of Hyper Light Drifter's strict learning curve. Its neon-coloured pixel art world - a setting rich with colour but marked by a terrible tragedy that informs everything from character design to the aesthetics of its large and varied map - is a joy to explore, even if you will die ad infinitum in your first few hours. With both the PS Vita and Wii U versions having fallen through in recent years, you only need to play this iteration for five minutes to appreciate just how perfectly Heart Machine’s labour of love suits Nintendo’s portable console. Running at a smooth 60fps in both handheld mode and docked, Hyper Light Drifter isn’t just another port of a popular indie game, but the definitive version on the platform it best suits. It’s a world full of danger, make no mistake, but you can tackle these challenges as and how you see fit thanks to the open nature of its map.Īnd what a world it is. It extends to the non-linear nature of its game world, full of obscurely hidden paths, shortcuts and hidden areas. Hyper Light Drifter's connection to FromSoftware’s seminal series covers more than just its simple yet punishing combat model.
And with its new Special Edition, Switch owners will have access to exclusive items and weapons that will make what can be a merciless experience far more palatable.Īll this talk of ‘relentless difficulty’ and ‘merciless experience’ might sound like we’re going to liken it to Dark Souls, and you’d be right, but the comparison is more than just a cliched reference. Two years on from its original release, Hyper Light Drifter might not feel quite as unique in both its art style and the relentless difficulty of its combat - especially in the company of Dead Cells and so many other pixel art indies - but that doesn’t mean this acclaimed hack ‘n’ slash odyssey has lost any of its potency.
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